The baseball season began with the Los Angeles Dodgers playing the San Diego Padres in Seoul, South Korea, in March. Two hundred and two days and 6,000 miles removed from that beginning, the season will end for one of them tonight. Game 5 of the National League Division Series has all the pre-set narratives of a classic: bitter rivals, superstar players and managers who can’t wait to get to their bullpens.
The winner gets to play the New York Mets in a coast-to-coast National League Championship Series. By the start of it, hopefully people will have stopped referring to the Mets as a “hot” team and a “Cinderella” team with “magic” on their side. What they should be calling them is the best team in baseball over the past five months, which is exactly what they are.
